Functional neurological disorder during covid-19 lockdown

Over 73 countries around the world implemented lockdown of varying degree to prevent spread of SARS-CoV-2. The COVID-19 pandemic is a cumulative stressor unfolding over time having affected general society, economy, culture, ecology, politics, and psychosocial health. A commonly encountered manifestation of impact on psychosocial health was functional neurological disorder. Conversion disorder or functional neurological disorder is a clinical challenge for both psychiatrists and neurologists. This study was done to scrutinize the prevalence of conversion disorder in patients admitted in department of General Medicine, Neurology Unit during the period of lockdown and to compare the data with previous years.
Materials: This retrospective observational study was performed in the Neurology unit at SRMSIMS, Bareilly for duration of 3 months of lockdown (March 23rd 2020- June 30th 2020) and data was compared with previous 2 years. Patients diagnosed with conversion disorder who were admitted in the Neurology ward, meeting the inclusion criteria.
Observation: It was observed that out of total admission of 146 patients in neurology unit during 3 months of lockdown period, 11 patients were diagnosed with conversion disorder, which was about 7.53% of the total admissions in neurology unit during 3 months of lockdown. The percentage of patients diagnosed with conversion disorder in the previous 2 years was 2.0% and 3.06% in the year 2019 and 2018 respectively in the same duration.
Conclusion: The percentage of patients presenting with conversion disorder during the period of lockdown was 7.53% of total admissions in Neurology department which was significantly higher than when compared to previous 2 years. Our study revealed increased psychological disorders in public due to lockdown.